Quotations on schizophrenia

“Schizophrenics are probably the most isolated people in the world. They are also quite remarkably alike.” Anthony Storr

“If you talk to God, you are praying; if God talks to you, you have schizophrenia. If the dead talk to you, you are a spiritualist; if you talk to dead, you are a schizophrenic.” Thomas Szasz

“Schizophrenia will continue to be a mystery so long as we fail to understand the forces and the organization which make for the wholeness of the personality.” Anthony Storr

“Without exception the experience and behaviour that gets labelled schizophrenic is a special strategy that a person invents in order to live in an unlivable situation.” R. D. Laing

“The difference between the maniac and the schizophrenic laugh is—mania and the world laughs with you, schizophrenia and you smile alone.” Richard Asher

“I think people become mentally ill when they’re somehow not too happy – not just after you’ve won the lottery you go crazy. It’s when you don’t win the lottery.” Excerpted from a John F Nash interview